


Late, Not-So-Great Aaron Echolls

by veronicafromneptune (Pigeonsplotinsecrecy)



Series: Flashes From The Past [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Death, Funeral, Gaslighting, Mostly Canon Compliant, reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 18:42:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19774120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeonsplotinsecrecy/pseuds/veronicafromneptune
Summary: Logan can't resist going to his father's funeral, even though the man doesn't deserve it. He can't help the feelings that his father's death have brought up. Even in death, Aaron Echolls has a way of getting into Logan's head.





	Late, Not-So-Great Aaron Echolls

Logan surprised himself by going to his father’s funeral. He’d initially vowed that he would abstain, letting Aaron depart the world the way he deserved. The headlines would be scandalous: “Aaron Echoll’s Son Refuses to Honor His Late Father.” Such an embarrassment would make Aaron roll in his grave and have him wishing he could take off his belt. Yes, that would have been delightful, but Logan had found himself unable to complete that last act of disobedience. Aaron didn’t deserve his son at his funeral, but Logan couldn’t stop himself from going— whether from a sense of duty or curiosity he couldn’t be sure. There were a lot of reasons swirling in his head. Some he’d tell anyone who asked why he went, and the others were more genuine. All held at least a kernel of truth.

He didn’t go because he cared what people would think if he didn’t; he wasn’t like Aaron in that way, but Logan couldn’t just not go, he had decided that morning. He needed closure, that elusive thing that everyone seemed to want after bad things happened. That was the quick and dirty excuse for what he was doing at a service for his second most despised person. The longer one was too complicated for him to fully understand himself.

Part of him went because he wanted to be sure that the bastard was really gone. He had a compulsion to see that his tormentor could never torment him again. If he didn’t go to the funeral, there’d always be that nagging, foolish doubt that maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe his father’s death had been a scam. Maybe Aaron Echolls had made the escape that he once thought his mom had attempted, but who was he kidding? His dad couldn’t stand being away from the limelight. He’d never stay away if he had the choice in the matter. Still, Logan needed to be sure. He needed to be sure the man could never hurt him again. Only then could he move on. There was a calmness to Logan’s shoulders now that he could be sure his dad was gone.

When Logan heard the news of his father’s demise, his first feeling had been relief. It was like he could finally take a breath after spending a lifetime on the moon. He felt a little guilty for wanting the bastard gone, but it was so soothing to know that Aaron could do nothing to get Logan back in his orbit. Only death could ward off Aaron forever. The man had gotten away with murder and a myriad of other crimes, and Logan knew that as along as Aaron was alive, he would squirm out of whatever controversy befell him. Death was the only escape from a man like that. No one wanted to believe he could be a cold blooded, abusive killer. Logan had learned that long ago. He’d tried telling people how awful his father was, but no one believed him then, and they wouldn’t now. Rage filled him as he thought of all the chaos his father had caused.

He was angry, so angry at everything his father had done, and angry that there were so many things he wanted to tell his dad that he’d never have the chance to say. Logan wanted to scream at the man in the casket and admonish him for all his deficiencies. There were so many feelings he’d kept locked away because of fears he didn’t want to admit he had. But it was too late now, and Logan still felt the fire smoldering in his belly, ready to flare up at any time.

He wanted to hate Aaron fully, but doing so would mean that he’d have to fully hate the person he most despised as well. And how could he fully hate himself, the person he’d been trained to see as the enemy, the problem? He came close to that all-encompassing hate, but he still liked to believe he was worth something, even if he wasn’t sure what that thing was. That little bit of worth he assumed himself to have was the thing that kept him thinking, “Maybe someday I’ll be enough. Maybe then he’ll stop.” That was the part of him that couldn’t hate Aaron entirely because it had belief that Aaron wasn’t completely bad. No, he couldn’t hate Aaron as much as he wanted to.

There was a part of him, a small, childish part, that Logan didn’t want to admit to having. It was that little tickle of love he had for Aaron Echolls, that microscopic thread of sincere affection that Logan couldn’t shake, no matter how much he wanted to hate his father with every fiber of his being.

Aaron hadn’t always been a monster. Well, he probably always had been a monster in Logan’s lifetime, but there were times when he played the part of devoted father well, even times when he played the part within the privacy of their own home. Maybe all those good memories of his father taking him out to sports games and day trips were merely so Aaron could pretend he was a good father and tell his friends stories of all the he and his son they did together as proof of how perfect their family was. It was all manipulation, possibly. Maybe whenever Aaron did nice things, he was doing it to confuse Logan, to keep Logan loyal even after beatings and head games. Maybe it was to lull Logan into a false sense of security before the next episode of abuse. Probably.

The psychological tricks had been the worst of all. Logan still couldn’t figure out what was real and what was fiction crafted by Aaron for the sole purpose of keeping Logan under control. Even as he grew big enough to take his father in a fight, he doubted that he should try to defend himself. He was too afraid to risk what might happen if he did. Because Aaron had power, and Logan learned early there was no stronger tool to have.

He still was uncertain if some of the beatings were warranted. He’d deserved them, hadn’t he? He’d been a little shit who did shitty things. He’d embarrassed his father and tarnished the family name. Wasn’t a good lashing deserved after all that? Logan wouldn’t have responded well to typical punishments like groundings or whatever else normal parents did. He was too bad for that, and if what Aaron did was really that bad, people— his mother, Duncan, Veronica— surely would have done something. Right? They must have thought he deserved it too, even if they wouldn’t like to admit violence was acceptable. He was the exception. The kid that was too bad and worthless for any other treatment. He pushed his movie star father into being that villainous person.

Maybe he hadn’t been abused at all; he had been too sensitive about his punishment. No kid loved punishment, and Logan was no different. He was just being a brat. As usual. Logan had never had it that bad. He was rich, with all the nice things a kid could want. He had no reason to complain that his dad had wanted to teach his son to be a good person. If Logan saw a parent treat another kid the way his dad had treated him, he would call child protective services, but when it came to him, he couldn’t decipher if what his dad had done was really that wrong.

Logan didn’t feel sad, necessarily, but there was a pang of something in his chest. Perhaps, it was longing for the kind of father he wanted but had never had. Perhaps, it was the loneliness of having no family left to care about what happened to him, the thoughts of holidays spent alone, or the realization that bad men never changed. Men who did bad things could start doing good things, but Men who were rotten the core would always be rotten to the core no matter how ripe their exterior.

Aaron Echolls was never going to stop being a cheater or a murderer. He was never going to stop evading responsibility. He was always going to be an abuser. He was dead. He was fucking dead, and even from the grave he still had the ability to mess with Logan’s head, and he always would. There would always be a part of Logan that wasn’t sure quite how to feel about his late, not so great father.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked this. Feel free to leave any feedback.


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